Brainiac Summer Reading -- Part 5 of 5

Final entry in the Brainiac Summer Reading series: books about pop culture.

Click here for Part 1 of this series: NEW FICTION
Click here for Part 2 of this series: REISSUED CLASSICS
Click here for Part 3 of this series: COMICS
Click here for Part 4 of this series: INTELLECTUAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, CRITICISM

"The Hamburger: A History" (Yale), by Josh Ozersky. Forget Michael Pollan's corn. Josh Ozersky, food editor for New York Magazine's website and a top-notch cultural historian, serves up a fast-paced and amusing account of how German "hamburg steak" evolved into hamburgers for urban factory workers, became an irrepressible economic and cultural force, and played a role in the suburbanization of America.

"Sex: How to Do Everything" (DK), by Em and Lo. Photography by Rankin. My children's bookshelves are crammed with DK's distinctive, superbly produced books, which present information in a manner that's beyond rich... it's mega-rich. DK also creates books for adults, so I guess it was high time they did a sex information book. And who better to call upon than mating and dating advice columnists Em and Lo (Emma Taylor and Lorelei Sharkey)? Em and Lo's trademark approach is: What's the big deal? Your sex life doesn't need fixing; it's supposed to be fun. So... fun sex advice, visually rich format. Got it? Get it!

"How to Build a Robot Army: Tips on Defending Planet Earth Against Alien Invaders, Ninjas, and Zombies" (Bloomsbury), by Daniel H. Wilson. I interviewed Wilson, a Portland, Oregon-based robotics researcher turned author for Ideas when he published his first book, "How to Survive A Robot Uprising." His new book suggests that robots can be our allies, not just our enemies... in the coming postapocalyptic battle against ninjas, aliens, pirates, and other fictional badguys admired by 826 Valencia types. Did you know? Sniper-detector robots are particularly useful for pinpointing the location of werewolves, because both bullet cracks and werewolf shrieks operate outside the range of human hearing.

"Scrapbooks: An American History" (Yale/Winterhouse), by Jessica Helfand. Scrapbooking may have jumped the shark, in recent years, but visual historian Jessica Helfand, co-principal of the design collaborative Winterhouse and author of an excellent history of volvelles, would have us understand that they have a long and colorful history. She's traveled the country in search of scrapbooks that are beautiful, eclectic, and that tell a good story; scrapbooks, she says, are visual autobiographies. We're treated to excerpts from 200 years' worth of scrapbooks, by well-known Americans like Zelda Fitzgerald, Anne Sexton, and Carl Van Vechten, which is fun. But we're also afforded a glimpse into the life and times of ordinary Americans. What a cool project.